Others say...

"Landscaping is Okay but don't bother with the house feature"
I'm a huge fan of home design programs, it's a great way to unleash creativity. I adore Punch Pro, however I agree with others I find the Punch Pro line substandard when designing houses compared to 3d Architect Home Design Deluxe 6, but Punch Pro is great for landscaping. There are a few errors with the plants not programed right in the computer, aka black box around some of the plants. Also I wasn't able to figure out all of the features, for example build your own items using the plane, and I was frustrated beyond comparison when my program's library crashed and I had to use the scary default library. That prompted it's removal from my computer!
However, I'd like to note an important tip: To accuratly run this and other home design programs, I had to invest in a top of the line video card for the rendering to look good. Don't go by what the box says, trust me just shell out the extra moo la if you're serious about building! Other wise you might as well beat another level of WOW waiting for the program to render!

Hope this review helps!

"Have to respond"
I read several of the reviews here and almost didn't purchase this software. But I chose to give it a try, after purchasing this product I am amazed at a couple of the reviews it received. One states either outright lies, or never bothered to try the correct method to make it work, and another assumed it would do all the work for them (if you want that hire an architect), as a tool it is very good.

Example: One wrote

" -- In my back yard there is cement, then 6" down, there is a garden. You can't move things in 6" units. Only 1 foot."

That is an erroneous statement. If instead of just dragging the elevation bar (which is set to snap to one foot increments) right click on it, it will bring up a dialog box, select set elevation, and type in the elevation you want (I did it to 1/8")

Another example of an outright lie is:

"a) The home design has no toilets, bathtubs, sinks, cabinets, beds, fans. etc."

I found ALL of those items in the program, WITH the ability to modify them in the 3D editor to match EXACTLY to what I have in my home.

Another problem this reviewer had with the 3D editor:

"Everything in here is a half-tool, remember? So I can enter a number for length, and height, but guess what, no WIDTH. That's right. "

In the 3D editor to make it easier to draw you select which plane you want to work on, ALL dimensions are for that plane, to adjust a dimension from another plane switch to a plane containing that dimension. (if you're on xy and want to do z switch to either xz or yz)

I have used several CAD based programs (Autodesk, Micro Station, etc) and for what this does it does it well, it has fairly extensive basic libraries, that you can modify to fit your particular plan.
It does take getting used to its conventions, but it is a powerful tool especially for the price.

It has several "power tools" that are its "wizards" to create specific items (like decks) that give you the basic shape and elements, then you adjust them to fit your project.

As an example of cost to power comparison,

Autodesk AutoCAD 2006 list price is $3,750.00.

Punch! Master Landscape Pro and Home Design list price is $79.99

For the price and features, it is WELL worth purchasing, but you will have to read and follow the directions, as it is a very detailed program.

"Get it FREE, or don't get it at all"
First off, I'm going to say I don't like this software, but it's very hard to find
ANY software that can do what this DOES do. That said, this is the lowdown:
CONS: I'm doing the cons first, because THAT is what is getting me to write this.
-- Nothing is finished. I'm not sure where PRO comes in, but
you can't create anything to a finished piece.
a) The home design has no toilets, bathtubs, sinks, cabinets, beds, fans. etc.
b) The Garden design has no Stepping stones, ponds, rocks, waterfalls, designer walls.

-- You can alter any of the textures to make your own "designer" Textures. This is lame.
Everything is a half-tool in this program. I found a CONCRETE I liked but it was too
dark. I take it into the custom menus. There, there are sliders for RED, Green, Blue.
The Concrete is a middle gray, and all the sliders are set to 255, 255, 255. That's the
MAX brightness, for every slider. I clicked on other textures, and Every texture
is the same. When you bring them into the custom menu, they are all 255,255,255.
SO, that means that you can ONLY make things DARKER. WHY!!!?!??!? Most
of the textures I liked, I just needed them to be a bit LIGHTER. there is NO way of
doing this.

-- I tried to make my stepping stones..... They have a 3D editor to create your own stuff.
A stepping stone is a cylinder. They have that as a basic shape, so this should be easy, right?
Wrong. I create a stone 1' x 1' x 2", when I click enter, it converts to 8.2' x 8.2' x 2.5".
I go into the Object editor, and click SIZE.
Everything in here is a half-tool, remember? So I can enter a number for length, and height,
but guess what, no WIDTH. That's right.

-- Garden design.... I draw out my house outer wall, and then create a property line. You can
add textures to the ground. Now each outline you make is basically a flat piece os geometry.
So if you make a big square, and THINK you are making a little square in it as a cement
landing, you are wrong. Both are still there. You never CUT into the original piece. So
now you have TWO squares fighting over who's textures get displayed. This causes flickers.

-- When making a long rectangle, and deciding to cut it into 2 squares, you will never do
this. It will always recognize it as ONE piece. You have to shrink the original to the shape
you want, then create a new piece next to it.
a) This is the same with INSIDE WALLS. If you have a long wall running down your
house, and two bedrooms share that wall. In one room that wall is white, and in the next,
it's green. Not in THIS program. You paint that green, and every room all the way down
the hall, now has a green wall.

-- In my back yard there is cement, then 6" down, there is a garden. You can't move things
in 6" units. Only 1 foot.

-- Plants. I got this to plant a garden, and found out that all the plants, and there are a LOT,
only come in ONE photo. So the whole AGE YOUR PLANTS to see what stuff will look
like in a few years, is wrong. They just scale it up. So If I plant Bamboo, in my yard, it will
come as a big jumble of shafts, and never spread, only get larger and more pixely.

--Personally, I have seen more flexibility in THE SIMS.

--Oh GOD, yeah, the walk through, is horrible, it's almost impossible to control the camera.
After all of us have played QUAKE, trying to get the hang of this 3D engine, is like making
us ride a bike with only one leg, and one arm.



--I figured out why the company's name is PUNCH. After 10 minutes with this software you'll want to punch someone.

--Whenever you click on a new tool, the icon conveniently turns into the tool you clicked. (ie. Wall, door, window)
This is great, to know what you are doing, but lousy for DOING what you are doing. You have no idea where
you line is going to start. Is it the top corner of the Door Icon, or maybe in the middle, possibly a bit up and to
the right of the icon.

-- anyone touting the Greatness of this software is a SHAM, who works for Punch.

-- The materials window, that allows you to place a material on any surface is WAY to small to hit anything accurately.



PROS:
It's interesting to have a blueprint of your house with all the measurements, even if it has
no bathroom or kitchen. It makes it easier to shop for carpet, sofa, drapes, etc.


-One thing good is the Video Tutorial on each button. When you click a button, you can R/Click to get a Tutorial.
This is great to figure out the uses of the buttons.
BUT, it doesn't cover EVERY button.

** I'd like to see a tutorial on how to make a simple house, and how to make a raised house, or a split level home.

"FINALLY a home owner can design their landscape!!!"
Wow, I took a picture of my my home scanned it in and with hundreds of plant varieties I designed what I thought would be great for our home. It was simple and quick to use. The realism was unbelievable with crisp images and realistic lighting and shading. My wife loved the growth feature that let us see what the landscape will look like in years to come.

The video tutorial feature is amazing and will help anyone get started designing quickly.



"Punch Pro Platinum"
This is the absolute world's worst design program. It is difficult to use and contains no wizards...It is the biggest waste of money I've ever experienced on software. Do not purchase this garbage.